College Of Engineering Trivandrum.

College of Engineering Trivandrum is a Kerala government engineering college, and the only numbered national rank it holds belongs to its architecture department: 15th in the NIRF 2025 Architecture and Planning table. In the Engineering table the same college sits in the unnumbered 101-150 band. Its B.Tech seats go to KEAM rank holders, its B.Arch seats go on NATA and Class 12 marks with no KEAM paper involved, and a student on a government seat pays the state-fixed annual fee of Rs 8,650 before the college's own PTA contribution.

CET opened in 1939 as the first engineering college in the erstwhile Travancore State, starting as a constituent college of Travancore University with 21 students each in degree and diploma courses in civil, mechanical and electrical engineering. It moved to its present 80-acre campus in 1960, and it is owned by the Government of Kerala, run by the Department of Technical Education and affiliated to APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU) (The College, CET). AICTE's extension of approval for 2026-27 records the institution type as Government and the year of establishment as 1939 (AICTE EoA 2026-27).

The college describes itself as eight departments teaching nine undergraduate programmes, 29 postgraduate programmes, an MBA, an MCA and doctoral work, with around 5000 students (The College, CET). Its engineering filing for NIRF 2026 counts 3243 students on four-year undergraduate programmes and 842 on two-year postgraduate ones, and records 55 of those undergraduates as coming from outside the country (NIRF 2026 engineering data, CET).

The campus is at Engineering College P.O., Sreekaryam, Thiruvananthapuram 695016 (contact, CET). On the KEAM option screen it is TVE, and two other Thiruvananthapuram names on the same lists are different institutions: Government Engineering College, Barton Hill, is TRV, and College of Architecture Trivandrum at Vellanad, NVR, is a self-financing college (KEAM 2026 prospectus, KEAM 2026 architecture last ranks, phase 2).

The undergraduate intake is set out department by department on the college's programme page, and the KEAM 2026 prospectus lists the same branches for TVE with 820 seats in all (UG programmes, CET, KEAM 2026 prospectus).

A separate evening track for working professionals takes 30 B.Tech students each in civil, mechanical, and electrical and electronics engineering (UG programmes, CET).

Most M.Tech specialisations admit 18 a year. The exceptions on the postgraduate list are Structural Engineering at 36, the M.Arch in Environmental Design at 20, Computer Applications at 60 and Business Administration at 120, and the list also carries the M.Arch in Urban Design and the M.Plan at 18 each (PG programmes, CET). The architecture department names its planning degree M.Planning (Housing) and dates it to 1989, with Urban Design following in 2013 (milestones, Department of Architecture and Planning).

What a First-Year Student Pays

The tuition side is fixed by Kerala, not by CET. For 2026 the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations (CEE) set Rs.8,650 a year for government and aided engineering colleges, and the same Rs. 8,650 for architecture at government colleges (CEE engineering allotment notification, CEE architecture option notification). Allottees at government engineering colleges under DTE also pay CEE a Rs. 1,000 caution deposit with that fee, unless they are SC, ST or OEC candidates (CEE first-phase allotment notification). CET then collects three funds of its own at admission.

The PTA sum is itemised, not a single levy. For a B.Tech student it is built from a Rs 500 membership fee, Rs 5000 towards college development, Rs 4000 for campus security, Rs 1500 each for association activities, research support and competency development, and Rs 1000 each for the department and the campus management software. SC, ST and OEC students pay only the membership and software lines, Rs.1500 in total (PTA fee structure 2026).

Postgraduates pay a different government fee at the college itself. An M.Tech, M.Arch or M.Plan entrant outside SC and ST pays Rs 13,426, made up of Rs 7,295 in tuition, a Rs 4,276 special fee, a Rs 280 admission fee and a Rs 1,575 caution deposit, while SC and ST students pay the deposit alone (general fee, MCAP 2026). The PTA contribution is Rs 10000 for M.Tech and Rs 12500 for M.Arch or M.Plan, the extra Rs 2500 being a special fee for architecture students (PTA fee structure, M.Tech, M.Arch and M.Plan).

CET does not rank its own B.Tech, B.Arch, M.Tech or M.Arch applicants. First-year undergraduate seats are allotted by CEE Kerala, postgraduate engineering and architecture seats by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), and lateral entry and MCA seats through LBS Kerala, the MCA on the KMCAEE entrance (B.Tech lateral entry admissions 2026, CET, CGPU placement brochure).

B.Tech Through the KEAM Engineering Rank

A B.Tech seat at CET comes from a KEAM engineering rank. That rank is an index mark out of 600, half from the normalised KEAM engineering paper and half from Class 12 marks in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry weighted 5:3:2, and the minimum for eligibility is 45% across those three subjects (KEAM 2026 prospectus).

Domicile decides more than rank for applicants from other states. The prospectus puts anyone not of Kerala origin who meets none of its residence or schooling conditions into Non-Keralite Category II, and says such candidates are not eligible for engineering or architecture courses in government colleges. Non-Keralite Category I candidates, for example those who studied in Kerala from standard VIII to XII, compete for State Merit seats only, without any reservation or fee concession (KEAM 2026 prospectus).

The 2026 cycle shows how long the process runs. Candidates allotted in the first engineering phase had to remit their fee to CEE online between 09.07.2026 and 12.07.2026 (CEE first-phase allotment notification). CET then admitted candidates branch by branch from 20/07/2026 to 24/07/2026, took third-phase engineering and second-phase architecture candidates between 06/08/2026 and 10/08/2026, and held its own spot round for leftover B.Tech and B.Arch seats on 7th September 2026, where candidates had to pay the full tuition fee along with PTA and bus funds of around ₹19000 (B.Tech and B.Arch admissions 2026, CET, third-phase admissions, CET, spot admission notice, CET).

Diploma holders join the B.Tech in the second year through LBS allotment, and pay a PTA contribution of Rs. 12000 at CET (B.Tech lateral entry admissions 2026, CET).

B.Arch Through NATA and Class 12 Marks

The architecture route shares only the application portal with engineering. CEE builds a separate B.Arch rank list by adding the NATA score out of 200 to the qualifying examination marks scaled to 200, ranking on the total out of 400, and states that candidates on the engineering rank list will not be considered for B.Arch on that engineering rank (KEAM 2026 prospectus). The prospectus names NATA 2025 or 2026 as the qualifying test and lists no JEE Main Paper 2 route into Kerala's B.Arch seats.

Class 12 must include Physics and Mathematics with at least 45% in aggregate, or a 10+3 diploma with Mathematics at the same 45%, and there is no lateral admission at any stage of the five-year course (KEAM 2026 prospectus). CEE published the 2026 architecture rank list on 10-07-2026 (CEE architecture rank list notification), and CET asks B.Arch entrants to bring a self-attested copy of the NATA score card with their other documents (instructions to candidates 2026, CET).

M.Tech, M.Arch and M.Plan

Postgraduate seats are allotted by DTE Kerala through its MCAP process. The architecture department states that GATE score holders get priority over non-GATE applicants for M.Arch (Urban Design), M.Arch (Environmental Design) and M.Planning (Housing) (PG admission procedure, Department of Architecture and Planning, M.Tech, M.Arch and M.Plan admissions 2026, CET). Seats left after the DTE rounds go to spot allotment at the college, and at the round held on 09-09-2026 applicants who were not on the MCAP rank list could register manually at the venue (PG spot admission notice, CET).

KEAM publishes a last-rank table after each allotment phase, and for 2026 the second-phase engineering table is the latest one on CEE's last-rank page (CEE last rank tables). At CET that table puts Electronics and Communication almost level with Computer Science in State Merit, while Industrial Engineering closed more than ten times further down the list.

Two quirks in the table matter at option-filling time. For SC candidates Civil Engineering was the harder seat, closing at 15550 against Mechanical's 17858, although Mechanical was the harder of the two in State Merit, and the Tuition Fee Waiver seats in Computer Science closed at 452, a tighter rank than that branch's State Merit close (KEAM 2026 engineering last rank table, second phase).

A missed close is not the end of the year at CET, because seats reopen after the third phase. CEE's vacancy position of 10 August 2026 showed 10 State Merit seats open in Electronics and Communication, 8 in Computer Science, 7 in Mechanical and 5 in Electrical and Electronics at TVE, before the spot rounds (tentative vacancy position after the third phase).

B.Arch ranks come from the separate NATA-based list, so a figure of 30 there is not comparable with an engineering rank. CET's B.Arch closed at 30 in State Merit in the first 2026 phase and at 32 in the provisional second phase, with the Ezhava close moving from 85 to 90 and the Latin Catholic and Anglo Indian close from 148 to 237 (architecture last ranks, phase 1, architecture last ranks, phase 2). The other government B.Arch colleges on the second-phase list closed further down in State Merit, at 93 for Thrissur, 133 for Kottayam and 158 for TKM Kollam (architecture last ranks, phase 2).

For M.Tech, M.Arch and M.Plan, CET's own admission pages post seat vacancies rather than closing ranks, because the ranking and allotment sit with DTE Kerala's MCAP process (M.Tech, M.Arch and M.Plan admissions 2026, CET).

The only batch-by-batch outcome record CET has published is the pair of data files it filed for NIRF 2026, one for engineering and one for architecture. Both report graduates, students placed and median salary for the three years to 2024-25 (NIRF 2026, CET).

The architecture filing tells a different story from the engineering one. B.Arch medians ran ahead of the B.Tech medians in every year, rising from Rs 7,70,000 for the 2022-23 batch, when 35 of 39 graduates were placed, to Rs 8,23,000 and then Rs 9,00,000 for 2024-25, when 37 of 40 were placed (NIRF 2026 architecture data, CET).

The same architecture file reports every one of its 52 postgraduates of 2024-25 as placed, at a median of Rs 19,20,000, up from Rs 15,35,000 two years earlier (NIRF 2026 architecture data, CET). That is roughly three times the engineering postgraduate median in the same year and gives no breakdown by programme or employer, so a prospective M.Arch or M.Plan student should ask the department how the figure was compiled before relying on it.

Neither filing names an employer or a top salary; those come from the Career Guidance and Placement Unit (CGPU), and they are marketing totals rather than batch records. The CGPU's 2026-27 placement brochure claims 1500+ placements and internships, 200+ recruiting companies, 2200+ offers and a highest package of approximately 40 LPA, without naming the years or programmes behind those totals (CGPU placement brochure). The unit's recruiter page shows logos including TCS, Oracle, Bosch, Texas Instruments, Zoho and Deloitte, again with no hiring counts attached (recruiters, CGPU). Because none of the CGPU totals is tied to a graduating batch, the NIRF medians above are the better guide to what a typical placed CET graduate earned.

The KEAM 2026 prospectus lists TVE's seats branch by branch: Civil, Computer Science, Electronics and Communication, Electrical and Electronics, and Mechanical at 120 each; Applied Electronics and Instrumentation, Industrial, and Electrical and Computer at 60 each; and Architecture at 40, for 820 in all (KEAM 2026 prospectus). The engineering sanctioned intake in the NIRF filing rose from 660 to 780 in 2024-25 (NIRF 2026 engineering data, CET).

Within each branch, government seats are divided on Kerala's mandatory reservation shares once seats for special reservations, persons with disabilities and supernumerary quotas are set apart, which is why a 120-seat branch does not split into whole numbers exactly as the percentages suggest (KEAM 2026 prospectus).

The prospectus does count special-reservation seats branch by branch at TVE, 6 in Civil Engineering, 4 in Architecture, 3 in Electrical and Electronics, 2 in Mechanical and 1 each in Computer Science and Industrial Engineering, but it gives the community quotas above only as percentages, not as seats per branch (KEAM 2026 prospectus). CET's postgraduate vacancies are published, though, and they show where demand is thin. On 05-09-2026, 143 M.Tech, M.Arch and M.Plan seats were still open, with 14 in Propulsion Engineering, 13 each in Electrical Machines, Hydraulics Engineering and Thermal Science, and 12 in Guidance and Navigation Control, against none in Computer Science, Structural Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Micro and Nano Electronics or the M.Arch in Environmental Design; Urban Design had 4 and Planning (Housing) 2 (PG vacancy position, 05-09-2026).

NIRF ranks an institution separately in each subject table it enters, from a separate data filing, and CET filed four for 2026: overall, engineering, architecture and management (NIRF 2026, CET). Its architecture filing covers only the B.Arch and the architecture postgraduate programmes, and the 2026 one shows a sanctioned undergraduate intake of 41, so the architecture rank measures that school and not the college's B.Tech branches (NIRF 2026 architecture data, CET).

In NIRF 2025 Architecture and Planning, CET is 15th with a score of 59.63, one place above Jadavpur University and two above MANIT Bhopal; NIT Calicut, the only other Kerala institution in the table, is 2nd (NIRF 2025 Architecture and Planning). In NIRF 2025 Engineering it is listed alphabetically inside the 101-150 band, which carries no individual rank or score (NIRF 2025 Engineering, 101-150).

The architecture rank has slid since the table's early years and turned up once:

The score climbed in 2025 even though one component fell sharply. Teaching, learning and resources rose from 56.16 to 62.64 and research from 33.09 to 39.71, but perception fell from 52.01 to 30.68 and outreach and inclusivity from 63.36 to 58.20, with graduation outcomes steady at 88.70 (NIRF 2024 Architecture, NIRF 2025 Architecture and Planning).

CET's NIRF ID in that table, IR-A-C-43708, ends in a college-type C code, while each of the 14 institutions placed above it in 2025 carries a U code, so no entry with a C code ranks higher (NIRF 2025 Architecture and Planning).

The college's computing centrepiece is an Nvidia DGX A100 installed in April 2024, with eight GPUs of 80 GB each and 28 TB of storage, used for machine learning work by students and researchers from all government engineering colleges in Kerala through around 200 user accounts (HPC, CET). The state has also sanctioned CET-SAT, a student nano-satellite to be designed and launched in association with ISRO (CET-SAT), and a Center of Excellence in Fluid Dynamics has run since January 2011 on initial state funding of Rs. 50 Lakhs (Center of Excellence in Fluid Dynamics, CET).

The central library holds more than 104500 documents and gives access to over 13200 online journals, with 48723 books in lending, 28282 in reference and 27565 in the book bank, which is aimed mainly at SC, ST and financially backward students. It opens 9.00 AM to 9.00 PM on weekdays, and issues books to working professionals until 8.45 PM (library, CET).

The architecture department's studio spending jumped in the latest filing, from 577646 rupees in 2023-24 to 4154412 in 2024-25 (NIRF 2026 architecture data, CET). The two NIRF filings answer the accessibility question differently for the same campus: the architecture file reports lifts or ramps in more than 80% of buildings, the engineering file in more than 60% (NIRF 2026 architecture data, CET, NIRF 2026 engineering data, CET).

Hostel

CET has a men's hostel behind the main college with 250 rooms for 500 students and a ladies' hostel at the front of the campus with 140 rooms for 400. Each runs under a warden, two assistant wardens and resident tutors, and the mess is managed by a committee elected from the residents (hostel, CET). Rooms are not assigned on first come, first served: the January 2026 circular for first-year women asks for an annual family income certificate and address proof against which the claimed distance from CET, by car route on Google Maps, is checked (Ladies Hostel admission circular, 17.01.2026).

The college gives its staff strength as 300 faculty members and 300 technical and ministerial staff (The College, CET). Academic administration sits with five deans: Dr. Jisha V R for UG studies, Dr Lekshmi A for PG studies, Dr. Baiju Sasidharan for research, Dr. Anil R for student affairs and Dr. Hari R for corporate and international relations. The Department of Architecture is headed by Dr. Manju G Nair (contact, CET).

Doctoral output has thinned sharply in the engineering filing. CET had 99 full-time and 129 part-time PhD scholars on its rolls, but PhDs awarded fell from 9 full-time and 18 part-time in 2022-23 to 1 full-time and 4 part-time in 2024-25 (NIRF 2026 engineering data, CET). Consultancy fell too, from 663 projects in 2022-23 to 440 in 2024-25, bringing in Rs 3,23,64,801 in the latest year (NIRF 2026 engineering data, CET).

The architecture faculty list filed for NIRF 2026 mixes long-serving regular teachers, some who joined in 1999 and 2000, with adhoc or contractual assistant professors hired from 2019 onwards, several of whom left in July 2025 (NIRF 2026 architecture data, CET).

At a glance

Quick facts